Adventure

Adventure games were some of the earliest games created, beginning with the text adventure Colossal
Cave Adventure in the 1970s. That game was originally titled simply "Adventure," and is the namesake
of the genre. Over time, graphics have been introduced to the genre and the interface has evolved.

Unlike adventure films, adventure games are not defined by story or content. Rather, adventure
describes a manner of gameplay without reflex challenges or action. They normally require the player to
solve various puzzles by interacting with people or the environment, most often in a non-
confrontational way. It is considered a "purist" genre and tends to exclude anything which includes
action elements beyond a mini game.

Because they put little pressure on the player in the form of action-based challenges or time constraints,
adventure games have had the unique ability to appeal to people who do not normally play video
games. The genre peaked in popularity with the 1993 release of Myst, the best-selling PC game of all
time up to that point.[18] The simple point and click interface, detailed worlds and casual pace made it
accessible, and its sense of artistic surrealism caused news outlets such as Wired Magazine, The New
York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle to declare that the gaming industry had matured.[19][20] It
had four proper sequels, but none managed to experience the same level of success. The success of
Myst also inspired many others to create similar games with first person perspectives, surreal
environments and minimal or no dialogue, but these neither recaptured the success of Myst nor of
earlier personality-driven adventures.[citation needed]

In the late 1990s the genre suffered a large drop in popularity, mass-market releases became rare, and
many proclaimed the adventure game to be dead. More accurately, it has become a niche genre.
Adventure games are not entirely uncommon, but they tend to be very low budget in anticipation of
modest sales. The genre was somewhat rejuvenated with the release of The Longest Journey in 1999,
which emphasized stronger story elements and more interaction with different characters. A recent
resurgence of adventure games on Nintendo consoles might signify a new interest in the genre.[21]

Strategy

Main article: Strategy video game

Strategy video games focus on gameplay requiring careful and skillful thinking and planning in order to
achieve victory and the action scales from world domination to squad-based tactics. In most strategy
video games, says Andrew Rollings, "the player is given a godlike view of the game world, indirectly
controlling the units under his command."[26] Rollings also notes that "The origin of strategy games is
rooted in their close cousins, board games."[26] Strategy video games generally take one of four
archetypal forms, depending on whether the game is turn-based or real-time and whether the game's
focus is upon strategy or military tactics. Real time strategy games are often a multiple unit selection
game (multiple game characters can be selected at once to perform different tasks, as opposed to only
selecting one character at a time) with a sky view (view looking down from above) but some recent
games such as Tom Clancy's EndWar, are single unit selection and third person view. Like many RPG
games, many strategy games are gradually moving away from turn based systems to more real-time
systems.

First-person shooter[edit]

First-person shooter video games, commonly known as FPSs, emphasize shooting and combat from
the perspective of the character controlled by the player. This perspective is meant to give the player
the feeling of "being there", and allows the player to focus on aiming. Most FPSs are very fast-paced
and require quick reflexes on high difficulty levels. The fast-paced and 3D elements required to
create an effective looking FPS made the genre technologically unattainable for most consumer
hardware systems until the early 1990s. Wolfenstein 3D was the first widely known FPS,
and Doom was the first major breakthrough in graphics; it used a number of clever techniques to
make the game run fast enough to play on consumer-grade machines. Since the release of Doom,
most FPS games now have a multi-player feature to allow competition between multiple players.
Sports[edit]

Sports are games that play competitively one team, containing or controlled by you, and another team
that opposes you. This opposing team(s) can be controlled by other real life people or artificial
intelligence.

Action-adventure[edit]

Main article: Action-adventure game

Action-adventure games combine elements of their two component genres, typically featuring long-
term obstacles that must be overcome using a tool or item as leverage (which is collected earlier), as
well as many smaller obstacles almost constantly in the way, that require elements of action games to
overcome. Action-adventure games tend to focus on exploration and usually involve item gathering,
simple puzzle solving, and combat. "Action-adventure" has become a label which is sometimes attached
to games which do not fit neatly into another well known genre.

The first action-adventure game was the Atari 2600 game Adventure (1979). It was directly inspired by
the original text adventure, Colossal Cave Adventure. In the process of adapting a text game to a console
with only a joystick for control, designer Warren Robinett created a new genre. Because of their
prevalence on video game consoles and the absence of typical adventure games, action-adventure
games are often confusingly called "adventure games" by gamers.
Role-playing[edit]

Main article: Role-playing video game

See also: History of role-playing video games

KQ is a role-playing game

Role-playing video games draw their gameplay from traditional role-playing games like Dungeons &
Dragons. Most of these games cast the player in the role of one or more "adventurers" who specialize in
specific skill sets (such as melee combat or casting magic spells) while progressing through a
predetermined storyline. Many involve manoeuvring these character(s) through an overworld, usually
populated with monsters, that allows access to more important game locations, such as towns,
dungeons, and castles. Since the emergence of affordable home computers coincided with the
popularity of paper and pencil role-playing games, this genre was one of the first in video games and
continues to be popular today. Gameplay elements strongly associated with RPGs, such as statistical
character development through the acquisition of experience points, have been widely adapted to other
genres such as action-adventure games. Though nearly all of the early entries in the genre were turn-
based games, many modern role-playing games progress in real-time. Thus, the genre has followed the
strategy game's trend of moving from turn-based to real-time combat. The move to real-time combat
began with the release of Square's (now Square Enix's) Final Fantasy IV, the first game to use the Active
Time Battle system; this was quickly followed by truly real-time role-playing games such as the Mana
series, Soul Blazer and Ultima VII. Some throwbacks to older turn based system did exist such as the
Golden Sun series for Game Boy Advance

Action RPGs[edit]

The action role-playing game or action RPG is a type of role-playing video game which incorporates
elements from action games or action-adventure games. The first action role-playing games were
produced by Nihon Falcom in the 1980s, such as the Dragon Slayer series and Ys series. Later so-called
"Diablo clones" are also part of this genre. Although the precise definition of the genre varies, the typical
action RPG features a heavy emphasis on combat, often simplifying or removing non-combat attributes
and statistics and the effect they have on the character's development.[24] Additionally, combat always
takes place using a real-time system (hence the "action") that relies on the player's ability to perform
particular actions with speed and accuracy to determine success, rather than mainly using the player
character's attributes to determine this. Typically action RPGs focus more on the collection of
randomized treasure than story progression that is found in other types of RPGs.